Interesting blog bits

1. Tyler Cowen asks How sticky are wages anyway?

   On the front of this new Elsby, Shin, and Solon paper (pdf) it reads “Preliminary and incomplete,” but if anything that is a better description of the pieces which have come before theirs. They have what I consider to be the holy grail of macroeconomics, namely a worker-by-worker micro database of nominal wage stickiness under adverse economic conditions, including the great recession and with over 40,000 workers, drawn from the Current Population Survey.

2. Simon J Evenett on Protectionism’s quiet return: The GTA’s pre-G8 summit report
   

   Commentators increasingly talk about the steady rise of protectionism. This column presents evidence from the newest Global Trade Alert report to suggest that they’re right: the past twelve months have seen a quiet, artful, wide-ranging assault on free trade. Little of this has showed up in traditional monitoring. Protectionism in Q4 2012 and Q1 2013 far exceeds anything seen since the onset of the global financial crisis.

3. Francesco Sobbrio, Ruben Durante and Filipe R Campante on Politics 2.0: Short-run and long-run effects of broadband internet on political participation

   What has been the impact of high-speed internet on political participation? This column reports new evidence from Italy and the formation of Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement. Largely through social media, broadband internet has enabled a fledgling political movement to reach a large number of people, overcoming the costly barriers to entry usually associated with new political parties. And it is this reach that has encouraged some disillusioned voters back to the ballot box.

4. Felix Bungay on John Rawls: For School Choice, Against the Minimum Wage

   When looking at contemporary liberal political thought, philosophers like Samuel Freeman and John Tomasi like to play up the difference between classical liberals, like Hayek and Friedman, and high liberals, like Rawls and Nagel. I happen to think there’s more common ground between the two groups than is commonly perceived.

5. Brennan McDonald on Watch Out! NZ Inc Is Everywhere (Especially In NBR Comments)

   Over at an article highlighting the Twitter spat between Rod Drury and Russel Norman, NZ Inc is used in the comments. I almost spat out my midday coffee.

6. John Taylor on Former Fed Chairs Speak Out

   Paul Krugman’s reply to my post on Allan Meltzer’s and Paul Volcker’s critiques of monetary policy failed to mention what Paul Volcker has been saying. Yet Volcker’s views are important, especially since, as Krugman points out, he “deserves immense respect for past achievements.”

7. Christopher Snowdon on Alcohol Concern sticks to the ideology

   It is brave for a lobby group that has a long track record of using dodgy surveys, junk science and misleading press releases to release a report entitled Stick To The Facts, but that is what state-funded 'sock puppet' charity Alcohol Concern have just done.

8. Sam Bowman on Politics is so nasty because we're all speaking different languages
   

   If you’re frustrated by how vicious and pointless politics is, a brief Kindle single by Arnold Kling may offer some insight. “The Three Languages of Politics” (£1.34, US link) dissects one of the main problems with politics: that progressives, conservatives and libertarians are all speaking different languages that rarely overlap and cause us to misunderstand and vilify our opponents.

9. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson on Whither Turkish Presidentialism

   Daron’s piece in the New York Times argued that the ongoing protests in Istanbul’s Taksim Square and several other cities may be a coming-of-age moment for a more participatory democracy in Turkey, but also that things are likely to get worse before they get better.